Aparatchik
by ThreeBlackRoses
Summary: Organization XIII spent years pursuing their dream of restoring the hearts of Nobodies. Now, Zexion stands poised on the cusp of that very acheivment. If only the witch's price proves humanly possible - and his own newfound emotions don't get him killed.
1. Araceli

**Disclaimer:**

**I do not, nor will I ever, own Zexion or anything copyrighted to SquareEnix. **

**Wendy, Araceli and Jane are, however, my beloved brainchildren **

**A/N: I hope you all hate me. This was, in my defense, my first ever fic. The plot was questionable and the characters were flat (in my own opinion). When I first posted this fic three years ago (yikes!), I thought I was a pretty good writer. I knew my stuff from a few years of accelerated English classes. When I went back to re-read this and try to pick it back up, I died a little inside. I revamped the first chapter, but I lost interest yet again, so I'm taking the whole thing down and starting over. Some of the characters are different and the plot changed as well. I hope all you kind souls who so kindly gave me feedback will return to review. Poke me (hard) if I don't update.**

_Chapter One: Araceli_

Zexion stirred faintly, agitated into consciousness by the sensation of loose cotton billowing beneath his cheek. He blinked lethargically and slowly stretched his muscles, listening to each twinge of pain the methodical movements produced as he calculated the damage the Riku Replica left him to contend with. Content that he was more stiff than seriously wounded, Zexion raised his head and observed his surroundings.

The first thing he laid eyes on was his book. The Nobody symbol peeled back pathetically to reveal the book's plain tan binding and the formerly pristine paint flaked off in random sections. His prize possession now resembled nothing so much as garbage-bound dictionary. Flinching slightly, he reached out to caress the cover. The movement, while miniscule, created a startling effect. The ground beneath him rolled slightly in the direction of his momentum and he froze, looking, for the first time, at his odd surroundings.

He sat, for lack of a more accurate term, atop what appeared to be a thick, particularly viscous cloud that stretched on for miles off into the horizon and, despite what logic told him to expect from such an anomaly, fully supported his weight.

Snatching his book up, Zexion clambered to his feet and stumbled across the expanse of never ending Nimbus, fearful that each step would send him plummeting to his death- provided he wasn't already dead. While he failed to drop through the roiling mass beneath him, it twisted and bucked like a water bed disturbed by a particularly restless sleeper.

Zexion decided he must be dead. The Cloaked Schemer grasped gratefully at this explanation - after all, anything had to be preferable to slogging along in painful ignorance.

He was dead. That had to be it. There was simply no other explanation as to why he was here, fighting his way through a bog complied entirely from what appeared to be Mother Nature's rejected nimbus cloud experiments.

Unfortunately, in this upside down, inside out world, his certain was merely a wild guess.

Zexion carried on for what felt to him to be hours, but could just as easily have spanned mere minutes, cursing his inability to tell time the entire way. At some point amid his battles with the cloud-stuff, a storm built above his head. The clouds gathering appeared exactly the same as those beneath his feet and he observed them without concern, but rather a growing curiosity. It wasn't until they began to solidify that he first had misgivings. Then, as the clouds beneath his feet faltered, Zexion paused. Looking to the far horizon he had been pursuing all day, he found a roiling mass of cloud withdrawing rapidly inwards, leaving nothing but empty space in its wake. In a matter of heartbeats he would have nothing left upon which to stand.

Acting on a desperate impulse, he hurled himself skyward, intending to grip onto whatever flimsy support the other path offered.

With alarming speed, Zexion's reality shifted abruptly downward, much to his displeasure, and he found himself lying facedown in yet another pouf of cloud-stuff, feet thrown up and over his head and book laying a stone's throw away and looking as miffed as a book may look after such blatant mistreatment.

Uncurling himself from his thoroughly contorted position, Zexion placed his hands beneath his chest to lever himself up and came face to face with an ancient, battered pair of black booted toes and the jean covered legs above them. Tilting his head back slowly, Zexion surveyed the woman who came into view with an astounded kind of caution generally reserved for wild animals.

In addition to boots and jeans she wore a faded black t-shirt that read Glamorie, in an embellished font. He calculated her age to be perhaps in her late forties or early fifties, although her flat, no-nonsense mouth, small nose and hard blue eyes made her look somehow ageless. Short blond hair shot through with gray gathered around her small face in a collection of curls that sprung randomly off into whatever direction struck their fancy and popped out cheerfully from beneath a slate colored baseball cap and somehow failed to make her seem any more endearing.

Zexion shot to his feet, hands clamoring for his tome, which he abruptly remembered sat not two feet away, yet absolutely out of reach.

"Oh, leave well enough alone!" the woman snapped in an ethereal voice reminiscent of ice filled fog rolling off chill waters. "I won't hurt you until you tell me what exactly you're doing in my ether plane. Even then you may not need your pretty little book."

"Etherplane?" Zexion repeated, tense and miserably confused.

"Two words. Ether. Plane. In my more fanciful moments, I call it Araceli."

Zexion, still rigid, caught his tongue before a thousand questions hurtled out of his brain and into his mouth. Instead, he contented himself with asking the obvious. "And Araceli is?"

Could it be that this was just another of their worlds, somewhere he sent himself in the climax of his battle with Riku?

"Araceli," the woman replied, "is my ether plane. It means altar of the sky in Castilian and I don't know why you landed here instead of in the Ether itself, but I mean to find out and get you gone as soon as possible." She glared at him as though and sane person would have had the decency not to bother her, so this was his fault. Somehow.

He had no sooner opened his mouth to speak when she cut him off with a flick of her wrist in his general direction.

"Your name?"

"What's yours," he shot back, cantankerous.

She shot him a slow, assessing gaze and then replied lazily, "It's Wendy. It's also impolite to respond to a question with another question."

"Zexion," he replied shortly, after a moment's hesitation.

"Well, that's not unusual at all," she drawled, stretching the syllables out with a roll of her eyes. "I usually get a Dave or a Bruce, even a Rupert on rare occasions, but Zexion? That's a first."

"Why do you get anyone here? I thought it belonged to you," Zexion prodded, suddenly deeply uncomfortable with her candid interest.

"It does. I'm a witch. A resurrection witch to be exact. I do trinket work on the side, but my job is to bring people out of comas. To do that, I have to bring them here first. Sometimes, they bring themselves. Any other questions?"

Oh, he had questions alright. "What am I doing here?"

"I'm assuming you either died or came damn close. If not, I don't know and I very much want you to get out."

"Nobodies can't die," Zexion stated flatly, willfully ignoring the second half of her reply. He knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that Nobodies could not die simply because Nobodies didn't really, truly exist. Without a heart you were doomed to be reborn time and again without ever finding true peace.

"In that case, I believe people in my line of work have a name for people like you."

"And that would be?" Zexion carefully probed, fighting an sudden and unusual sensation in his stomach.

"Fated," Wendy replied with a slow smile. Her grin faltered a moment later as she marked his grimace.

"Feeling alright?" she inquired, sounding as though worry were as foreign an emotion to her as any.

"No," he snapped. "I'm not. I feel like there's a knot in my gut every time you tell me something new."

She tilted her head, obviously confused and started towards him. With a startled flinch, Zexion backed out of her reach and curled his arms around his stomach.

"There," he said, eyes narrowed. "It did it again when you reached for me. It feels like – like I'm falling. But, in little, jerky drops."

"Like surprise?" Wendy inquired, eyebrows nearly losing themselves in her hairline.

"Impossible," he corrected testily. "I'm a Nobody. We don't have hearts, and we don't feel surprised."

Wendy blinked and simply stared for a long moment, opening and closing her mouth a few times before finally speaking. "Explain."

"Find me somewhere I can sit down," Zexion demanded, desperately fighting for control of the situation. He hoped that a walk to some destination with chairs would provide him with a reprieve to organize his thoughts.

True to form, Wendy proceeded immediately to decimate his hopes, conjuring two insubstantial looking chairs from the billowing nothingness around them.

Gingerly, he sat down and faced the witch across from him, steeling himself for whatever future surprises she had in store.

To her credit, Wendy heard him out without comments, listening, head cocked, while he explained Heartless, Nobodies and Ansem the Wise's research. He felt uncannily as though she suspected him of leaving out some of the more sordid details, but the witch never pressed him and for that, if anything, he was grateful.

She sat in still silence for a time after he finished speaking, fingering the loose, threadbare fringe of the bottom of her T-shirt, considering this influx of information.

"Well," she said at long last, "you've certainly come a long ways from Kansas, dearie. We've nothing like any of that here, although he have a fair number of strange occurrences in my world as well.

The best I can advise is that, as a resurrection witch, I know for a fact that a soul can only progress into the Ether as a whole unit. The essence of a person must be complete. Therefore, I would assume that since your hearts have – presumably - already progressed into this Kingdom Hearts of yours, they were simply awaiting your crossing over."

"And that means?" Zexion inquired, still on edge and irritated by the uncomfortably acute tenseness still weighing his stomach down.

"It means that you could be brought back," Wendy finished, looking at him for the first time with something like kindness.

The knot plummeted ground ward, dragging Zexion's stomach with it and making room for the cold, weightless sensation that stole over him, creeping into the crevices of his soul like fog studded with shards of ice.

"What," he began through numb lips that struggled to form the words, "if I don't want to go back?"

"Then I suppose you could loiter here until something happens, but that could take an eternity," she replied easily, baiting him.

"What if I don't deserve to come back," he murmured softly, mulishly refusing to meet her eyes.

"Everyone deserves a second chance," Wendy responded, voice pitched to match his.

"If you knew even half of the things I've done," he began.

"Then I wouldn't know half as much about you as I need to," she finished for him, accepting his look of sharp surprise with a crisp nod of her head.

"I – I need to think about this," Zexion stammered, vaulting to his feet and stepping cautiously away from her.

"Of course," Wendy replied. "I don't have forever, but I'll find you before I need to-"

A sudden cacophony of wind screamed past the pair of them, cutting her off and knocking Zexion back to his knees with the sheer force of the gale winds.

"Oh, bollocks," Wendy swore, struggling to her feet in the dying wake of the winds and surveying the creature before them that brought the brief storm about.

"We have a problem," it announced in a tone at once pompous and alarmed. "Oh, yes, we have a problem!"

"Zexion," Wendy began through clenched teeth and a smile that could have been carved from plastic, "Meet the Observant. Observant, Zexion."

Zexion inched around the witch to get his first good look at the miniscule creature called the Observant. Roughly level with his shoulder and entirely green, the Observant stared back at him with its lone eyes peering owlishly out from behind the high collar of its empirical coat.

"Zexion, eh?" it inquired sourly. "That's all well and good, Wendy, but Clockwork's sent me down with some terrible news."

It puffed itself up, obviously waiting for a reaction to its Very Important News. Wendy crossed her arms and shot it a look that could have frozen it to the spot. The green creature shifted slightly in obvious discomfort, shrinking beneath the witch's gaze.

"Go on," she prompted after a disproportionate pause, awkward and dragging. "Say it."

"Someone's stolen Phantom," the Observant reported in hushed tones, lone eyes refusing to look directly at the woman. Instead it drifted to Zexion, as though staring at the Nobody could somehow protect it from the sheer force of the witch's temper.

The storm it awaited never came, however. Instead, she calmly asked, after shooting an unreadable glance Zexion's way, "Did Clockwork not prepare for such an occurrence?"

The Observant's pompous manner faded entirely with the question. "He's gone after Danny," it replied, sideling away from the pair of them. "Phantom that is, not Clockwork. He said you would have an idea. You _do_ have an idea," it continued, plaintive and suddenly childlike in its fear, "don't you?"

"Of course," Wendy replied smoothly, still utterly unreadable. "Tell Clockwork I'll set the gears in motion and then come to visit him. Now shoo." She swept her hands impatiently towards the Observant and it obligingly scuttled away to parts unknown. Zexion watched it go, torn between relief that it had left and alarm at being left alone with Wendy once more.

"Well," Wendy began, startling him out of his reverie, "I know I promised you time to think, but we need to move along now, if anything is to be done."

"To be done with what?" he asked her sharply, suspicious of her crisp, emotionlessly businesslike tone.

"You, I suppose. I need a favor, and it seems to me that you feel the inexplicable need to atone for whatever you've left behind you."

"What kind of favor?" he inquired.

"I need you to masquerade as the boy I discussed with the Observant just a moment ago. Danny. He's a charming kid, really," she reassured him, doubtless seeing his imminent refusal in his posture and repulsed expression. "Don't you ever wonder what it could have been like, if you had lived out your childhood as something other than a child prodigy?"

"No," he replied candidly. "I have not."

"I could give you your heart back," she offered, suddenly sly.

Zexion felt the gaping maw in his chest where the very unity they discussed once sat echo the words into a cacophonous, ringing force at the prospect. All reluctance aside, he had spent countless years striving for just such a prize. Certainly masquerading as a teenage boy for several days would be a paltry price to pay indeed.

Outwardly, he contrived an expression of unconcern. "Anything else?"

Wendy's eyebrows rose incrementally and she relaxed her posture slightly, inclining her head to the left and smiling a crooked grin. "You drive a hard bargain, boy. Alright, my best offer. You help me distract a township while I find this boy, I return your heart and help you put your Organization friends back together again. Just the first six, mind."

"Interesting," he conceded. "And what's in it for a mere resurrection witch? Glory? Or – and correct me if I go astray - could it be that you're something…more?"

Their wordplay lent him a confidence that emboldened him to inquire more specifically about his host, but his natural caution warned him suddenly as her shoulders tightened instantaneously and her eyebrows drew together in consternation, that perhaps he had overstepped his bounds.

Scarcely had he opened his mouth to relent, but she nodded curtly and acquiesced. "I _am _a resurrection witch," she assured him, "and whether or not I am more does not concern you right now. You've heard my terms. Take it or leave it."

"Take it," he responded, slate eyes flashing with resolve.

Wendy nodded, looking once again serenely unconcerned with the world. She stepped across the cloudbank until the stood toe to toe.

"Don't move," she warned, tucking his book, retrieved on her short trip over to him, safely between his hands. "and hang on tight to that. You'll need it."

Suddenly, she leaned in so close he thought for a moment she meant to kiss him. Instead, she stopped a hair's breadth away from his face, so close he felt her breath on his face and made a conscious effort not to flinch.

"You'll be disoriented when you wake, but just roll with the punches until I get ahold of you," she warned, boring into his eyes with her gray ones, hard as shards of flint.

He felt the absence of air as she inhaled deeply and the sudden influx of magic as she exhaled.

This breath hung silver and opaque between them, a cocoon of smoke wrapped around a living breath. Slowly, the magic within the breath began to pulse, slowing to match her own physical heartbeat and pulsing in his head, a steady, even rhythm. The beat became a hum, low and resonant, as a hollow developed at the center of the breath.

Zexion never noticed when Wendy released his hands and reached behind him, nor felt the ripple of space as it contracted and expanded again, leaving a glittering shard behind, sharp and bright in her hands. He vaguely noticed when she slid the shard into the silver mist and his lips parted in a gasp of surprise as the breath became as delicately pink and powerfully magical as any heart released by the Keyblade.

The breath, awaiting just this opportunity, slid between his parted lips and kicked down his throat and into his chest, spreading from there to the rest of his body. He jerked out of her grasp and fell to his knees, then sank lower, until he lay on the ground, body moving disjointedly, like a rag doll possessed by the wind.

"By the by," Wendy added with a scheming grin. "When you wake up, you'll feel like a bull moose kicked you in the chest."

Zexion, rapidly sliding into a haze of nothing, serenaded by the pounding of his heart, barely registered the words before he drifted into the soothing darkness of a deep sleep.

A/N: That's right; Wendy's taking Rhyme's place. She's a crossover from a Danny Phantom fic I may or may not write and Zexion will figure out her actual role later, if at all. She won't be terribly important after we meet clockwork.

Okay people, I owe you all and apology. Here it be: I, ThreeBlackRoses, am a slacker of epic and ridiculous proportions. Despite dedicated crit and love from reviewers, I have not updated in over a year. Thus, I am re-doing the entire fic. That's right, straight up re-posting. New name, fresh start, the whole shebang. So please, out of the goodness of your hearts, re-read and review.

I hope that those of you who remember Rhyme understand why I replaced her. She had to large a part in the story and too small a character value. I also hope you can forgive my intrusion onto your better sensibilities with my OC Wendy here. Overall, I find her character stronger and her Mary Sue-ness drastically less, but she's still too much OC for my tastes. Bear with me, and her worth may well be proven.


	2. Soft October Sunlight

**Disclaimer:**

**If I owned Kingdom Hearts, or any characters thereof, Zexion and Roxas would still be alive and well and Sora would be back on his island reveling in his stupidity as the Organization took over the world.**

**A/N: Wow. I actually made it back for a second chapter. I haven't much to say except I hope you're enjoying this strange ride so far. I know the chapters are pititfully short, but I promise they get better as this shenanigan wears on (trust me, I've read ahead ;) )**

**And a huge thanks to those of you who've faved this story so far. It's nice to know someone enjoys what I write.**

_Chapter Two: Soft October Sunlight_

Shafts of October sunlight lit the leaves piled on the ground, transforming them into heaps of harmless flame. The air was crisp and clean, the smells of pumpkin pie and nutmeg floating on an easy autumn breeze.

Amid the serene beauty of the season, a third scent pierced the air, a distinctly burning aroma accompanied by an enraged scream that seemed to shear through the silence. An explosion shook the ground as the sources of the disturbance grappled in midair, each battling for any possible advantage over the other.

"Give up now boy! Accept defeat and your death may be painless." The ethereal speaker, his skin tinted an unnatural blue-green with a flaming plume of ice white hair flying like a banner from his head, tossed another searing bolt of energy towards his quarry.

"Never. I erased you from this time-line once and I can do it again!" Apart from his more natural, pale complexion and striking green eyes, the second combatant bore an uncanny resemblance to his foe, "I'll never let you win, Dan. Amnity Park is mine to protect, and I won't let my family and friends down again!"

"My, my. Such big words for such a small child. Come now Daniel, it is inevitable that you will become me eventually. I. Am. Your. Future." Dan punctuated each word with a rapid blast in the younger's direction. Danny dodged each bolt with increasing difficulty, visibly flagging at the end of what had been a long and arduous battle. If Jazz didn't arrive soon, he could only guess at the outcome.

"Terribly sorry to interrupt this obviously touching reunion, but I feel obligated to remind you that Daniel is mine to destroy." Danny and Dan both spun abruptly to face the newcomer, forgetting momentarily about their duel and joined in a common enmity towards the white cloaked man hiding deep within the shadows of a nearby building. As he floated into visibility, he vamparic countenance became entirely visible, pointed teeth curving upwards in a cocky grin.

"Hah! Without Clockwork to help you, neither of you could hope to touch me!" Dan crowed in triumph. He loosed several ecto-blasts in Vlad's direction, chortling as one planted itself squarely in the halfa's chest, tossing him backwards into the very building who's shadow so effectively hid him moments earlier. The ghost paused a moment, ascertaining that his quarry would not rise any time soon, before turning back to face Danny.

He found himself greeted by empty air.

As he opened his mouth to bait his younger self out of hiding, he lurched forward, an unfamiliar weight bearing down on his back.

To late, he realized exactly where his opponent had disappeared to and jerked downward, then rapidly upward again. He continued to overcompensate wildly for a moment longer, losing an alarming amount of altitude in the process.

Finally irritated beyond all caution he spun sharply right and loosed a final bolt of energy at his assailant.

The projectile reached its destination and plowed into the teen's exposed abdomen, throwing him backwards as easily as it would have a rag doll and Dan lost sight of his young self in the blinding flash of light emanating from just beyond where Danny would have ideally landed.

Satisfied with his handiwork, Dan floated easily to the small circle of debris that indicated when the younger landed, bourne by his attack.

In place on an unconscious Danny, he found a slate haired stranger lying unconscious and remarkably unscathed among the rubble.

Perturbed he reached out into the Ghost Zone with his mind, searching until he located an unconscious Danny lying exactly where he had intended to send him.

Confused by the appearance of this anomalous creature, but satisfied with his success, he headed away for the time being, deciding to cut his losses and waste no more time pondering the stranger in Amnity Park.

Plasmius regained consciousness just in time to see the elder Phantom disappear into the Ghost Zone.

Immediately, if somewhat clumsily, he rose to follow, never sparing a glace for the slate haired Nobody, still lying unaware mere feet away. Swearing, he limped out of the square and shakily rose into the air, heading for home and the portal located in his basement.

Mere seconds later, three teens came sprinting around the corner.

A young woman with black hair and a distinctly Gothic taste in clothes lead the cadre, worry plainly etched across her face. The boy hot on her heels clattered with the assortment of technology her wore on his person, swiping a hand across the sweat beading on his dark brow and sparing a glance back at the last, and eldest, member of their group, a red-haired teen whose pale, small face bore an uncanny resemblance to the young half ghost.

It was she who gratefully cried out "Danny!" at the sight of the young, pale haired boy lying amid the rubble.

She fell to her knees beside him, bubbling apologies before her body even settled beside him, explaining how their parents had sidetracked her and how relieved she was that he was all right.

To this scene, Zexion opened his eyes.

All at once, a hush fell over the three teens crouched above him. Dimly, he realized that the stranger's faces should alarm him, but he could scarcely muster the energy to think beyond the crushing pain in his chest. He struggled to breathe for a moment, terrifyingly sure that the pressure in his chest would suffocate him.

Finally, after a dozen uncertain moments, the terrible agony faded, leaving him breathless but alive on the ground. Feeling functional once again, if still battered beyond all explanation, he opened his eyes once more. The teens had moved away from him, but not left entirely. From their seated position they assessed him as one might an animal in the zoo, unsure of whether or not he posed a danger to them, or if they needed help.

Wendy's words about disorientation – and pain – floated back to him. Somehow, he thought, she rathe understated the matter.

"You're-" he broke off with a cough, shocked by the rasp in his voice. He cleared his throat and tried again. "You're looking for Danny, I take it?"

Well that certainly earned him a response. The younger teens recoiled, but the redheaded girl vaulted to her feet, seized the front of his cloak and dragged his face level with her own.

"Where is my brother?" She snarled, green eyes flashing.

"I don't know," he rasped, disgruntled. "Wendy and Clockwork, whoever that may be, are looking for him, as nearly as I can assume. Now if you would be so kind as to release me?"

She loosened her grip, but kept hold of his jacket, looking him over from top to bottom. "I think we have some talking to do," she told him, looking suspicious.

Zexion supposed he could hardly blame her.

"Not here, Jazz," the dark skinned boy behind her put in reasonably. "Just think of what people would say if they saw 'Danny' dressed like that."

"Yeah," the gothic girl agreed. "Let's take him back to your place and talk there."

The redhead shot him a long, hard stare before releasing his coat and standing up, offering him a hand to his feet, which he gladly accepted, shocked by his own weakness. He vowed to have a few words with Wendy about her inadequate warnings. Assuming he ever saw her again, that is.

He wavered for a moment, no longer at home on his feet, and followed the trio once his balance returned, hoping that they didn't intend to kill him once they got him alone.

Somehow, he doubted it. After all, he's spent his last eternity reading people far more dangerous than this mismatched group.

* * *

_**A/N**_: I'm not a huge fan of this chapter, but I suppose it was necessary. And I adore Jazz. :) Coolest sister ever!

Feel free to correct any spelling or grammar errors you find. Like all my other work on this site, I re-read it, but post it unbeta'd.


	3. Snip Snip, Sweetheart

Disclaimer:

If I owned Kingdom Hearts, or any characters thereof, Zexion and Roxas would still be alive and well and Sora would be back on his island reveling in his stupidity as the Organization took over the world. So there.

Disclaimer: I'm in college. I own nothing and I'm about to be so far in debt that I will continue to own nothing for several years into the foreseeable future.

_Chapter 3. __Snip, Snip Sweetheart_

"Dude, if we were any other people, we'd be laughing our skinny teenage asses off at you right now!" Tucker exclaimed, looking so suitably flabbergasted that Zexion fought to squash the smirk he felt tugging at the corners of his mouth.

"Yeah," the younger girl, Sam agreed. "But we are us, and it figures we would run into a dimension hopping treasure hunter while searching for our missing friend."

Zexion flinched at the label 'treasure hunter.' While not entirely a lie, it sounded far too much like 'pirate' for his personal comfort.

For his part, Zexion had taken each of their new revelations in stride, remaining quiet; watching, waiting, and judging the trustworthiness of his new companions. It was in his nature to gather information, and thus far, the facts were adding up to his initial estimation. Although he felt that they had left out some details in their explanation of Danny's life, he also appreciated the scope of the teen their synopsis had lent him.

Of course, he too glossed over some of the non-essential details in his life story, so he supposed they were even in that respect. However, these strangers now arguably knew more about him than any but the closest Organization members, and that, disgusted though he was to admit it, terrified him. How these people had lulled him to a point of such unreasonable he simply could not fathom.

So, still mentally kicking himself, the Cloaked Schemer sat back, kept silent and profiled his young companions, searching for his answer within their smooth, guileless faces.

The redhead, Jazz, had asked to the point questions from the start, and the academic grudgingly admitted to himself that this girl was smart; marking her as a valuable ally, or a terrible enemy. Until he no longer thought she was trustworthy, he decided to do everything in his power not to get on this girl's bad side.

Until, that is, she suggested the impossible.

"You want me to what?"

"Pose as my brother. He's missing, Mom and Dad will freak out when they get back from their sabbatical, and you need a way to blend into a strange environment. It's perfect, and don't worry, we can teach you how to be Danny, no problem."

Zexion wished vaguely that she looked half as confident as she sounded.

Regardless, after another two hours of intense conversation, bribery and outright blackmail, the group found themselves outside of Amnity Park's largest mall, trying to convince the slate haired interloper that stepping inside would not, in fact, kill him.

Zexion just wasn't buying it.

"It's not natural, all the shops stuck indoors," he argues, aghast, "Markets are supposed to be outdoor affairs, in street with, room to breathe."

Room to breathe was the last thing featured in the mall's cramped interior. Angry shoppers pushed their way through the droves of people as teens in every possible assortment of clothing, or lack thereof, loitered, skated boarded and danced to music only they could hear.

Zexion leaned as far away from the tumult as he could get without actually stepping backwards. Jazz, seeing his tension, leaned in, and with all of the patience she could muster said, "Zexion, I don't know you, and you don't know me, but I do know my brother and he is likely in way over his head this time around. Whatever went wrong, wherever he is, he can't get out of it alone. And if my parents realize that he is gone, his big problem will become insurmountable. I need your help, and you aren't exactly in a position to argue. All I'm asking is that you follow my lead. I promise I won't do anything too horrible," she finished, with a lame attempt at a smile.

But her calm mask had slipped, and Zexion had seen her worry, her fear that she would never see her little brother again. It occurred to him suddenly that he was being dreadfully selfish. Dim though the memory was, he too had called people family once and once upon a time it would have killed him to have thought that they were in danger. Yet, try as he might, he could not remember their names, and that thought also distressed him.

Directly on the heels of that sobering revelation came a realization that knocked him senseless for several long moments after it passed.

_He cared_.

Not just about saving his skin, but about this girl and her problems and even about those dim memories he once called family.

Clearly, his returning heart would be a problem best dealt with quickly. These feeling could get ugly in left unhindered. He brushed his fingers against his chest at the sudden pain there, and then realized that it was indeed his heart that hurt.

Breathing in deeply, he faced the building once more, hands at his side, shoulders squared. Perhaps he would remember them again, this family for whom his heart hurt, but for now, those memories were Ienzo's and it didn't feel right to examine them just yet.

"Now, that's more like it!" Several elderly, female shoppers turned to stare reprovingly at the girl by the dressing rooms.

Ignoring their scandalized stares, she continued to survey the boy in front of her. Dressed in a dark T-shirt emblazoned with a silver design, dark rinse jeans that were slightly too big and black and white high tops, Zexion could actually have passed himself off as a high school student. He certainly looked nothing like anything he had even previously appeared.

For the first time since this insane farce began, Sam began to think that they just might pull this off.

The only problem now was his hair. With its peculiar shade and style, it would be hard to explain where and how Danny came by it. To make matters worse, it was a Sunday, and on Sundays there was only one place they could get his hair cut.

"Danny! What _have_ you done to your hair?" Given the choice, Sam would not have walked into Paulina's salon of her own free will, but desperate times call for desperate measures. Jazz had gone to take a call from her parents and Tucker had long since been lost to TekTek, the mall's computer shop, leaving Sam all alone to face her own personal hell.

"It's a...long story Paulina," Sam sighed, nursing the beginnings of a migraine and shoving Zexion into a nearby stylist's chair. "Needless to say, we didn't think the dye would turn it quite that...shade. Can you fix it?"

"Oh, but of course!" Whipping out a sheet of fabric and her scissors, Paulina advanced on the chair. Draping the cloth around his shoulders, she spun the seat, examining his head from every angle.

_If we're ever gonna be busted, it'll be now_, Sam thought, incredibly tense.

"Actually, the cut isn't too bad." Paulina conceded looking up from her inspection, "But the color is absolutely hideous. Only thing worse we have in stock is that maroon. It looks like brown-pink. Something funny?" She looked down as "Danny's" body jerked with a single peal suppressed laughter.

He only vaguely remembered the man, but Marluxia's hair would remain emblazoned into his mind until the day that he died.

"Anyway, will you dye it?" Sam interrupted, fidgeting with the hem of her shredded skirt.

"Can I pick the colors?"

"Sure, sure." _Anything to get us out of here._ Although she didn't say the words aloud, Zexion cold see them, tattooed along the stressed creases around her mouth and eyes.

"All finished! You can open our eyes now." Honestly, Zexion had been expecting the worst. This girl seemed to have an affinity for pink. His hair, however, actually looked …acceptable.

The once slate colored locks had been dyed a harsh black and streaked with an unnaturally bright blue. She hadn't cut much, and his bangs still swept to the side, although more of his face was visible beneath them. His skin, always an almost sickly pale, stood whiter than ever against the black, a ghostly, ethereal effect he found entirely too amusing, given his history.

He stood slowly and glared sullenly at the mirror, sickened that he even cared. This emotion thing seemed _way_ overrated in his lofty opinion.

"Wow." Jazz stood in the doorway, head turned to the side, mouth quirked into a smile. "I like it. We should get going. Thank you, Paulina."

"Oh, it wasn't a problem. Enjoy the new color." The girl turned to her next customer, ignoring them completely.

"Is she always like this?" Zexion asked softly as they left the shop.

"Usually she won't give you the time of day to begin with," Sam snarled, "She only paid attention today because she loves to critique people's looks."

"You really don't like her," Zexion noted with a small smile, "Why?"

"Because Danny does." Tucker joined the group once more, staggering and almost invisible beneath the mountain of computer parts he'd procured.

"Looks like someone had fun today," Sam replied acidly, still vexed by what she perceived as inexcusable abandonment in the face of enemy fire.

"Well, group, we'd better be getting home," Jazz hurriedly put in as Tucker floundered for a retort, coming perilously close to losing his grip on several of the devices placed precariously near the top of his baggage. She combed through her purse, searching for the keys.

"Wait." Zexion stopped in front of a shop door. That in itself was strange, as most of the mall's stores were open. This storefront had a door, surrounded by windows. Emblazoned on the glass in a scripted font suited to a time long since lost to the history books, was the name _"The Test Of Time." _

Something about the store brought back the floating sensation of the etherplane and he would have sworn that from beyond the door a strain of music uncannily close to that playing in Naught leaked through. Or, he could simply be overanalyzing this as he tended to do with most practical situations.

"Zex- D-Danny?" Jazz's voice bit into his thoughts. She was looking at him with her head tilted sideways, a question in her eyes.

"I-eh- want to look for a watch. Be right back" Before any of them could protest, he stepped forward into the store. It wasn't until the door slammed shut behind him with a terrible finality that he began to think he should have kept on analyzing.

"It's about time." The voice belonged to a woman sitting behind the clock shops glass counter, bent over what appeared to be a watch, crafted out of bejeweled metals. She looked up at him for a moment with dark eyes as he backed away.

"Do I know you?" He questioned, hand on the doorknob. The door refused to open, and Zexion began to tense up.

"No, no. Of course you don't." The girl flipped back her dark hair, revealing a winding design on the outside corner of her right eye. She stood slowly, black clothing blending in and out of the darkness. "I'm Jane."

Somehow, being locked in a clock shop with a total stranger who introduced herself so frankly and so utterly without preamble did very little to soothe Zexion's already frayed nerves. That was also ignoring the fact that she appeared to be nowhere near this side of sane.

"Oh, relax. Wendy would murder me if I hurt you. All I want to do is play a little game with fate." Asylum began to walk around the counter, picking up a wrapped package as she went. Reaching Zexion, she offered the package with a lopsided smile, "A gift. In this world, and as who you're pretending to be, walking around unarmed is a mistake you likely wouldn't survive."

"How do you know Wendy?" Zexion asked, not entirely surprised by her flippant attitude. After all, if she was to be believed, she was related to that psychotic resurrection witch.

"I suppose you could say she's my aunt," Jane replied with a tight smile, looking entirely unamused.

Not even remotely reassured, Zexion reached out to take the package and slid the paper wrappings off. Inside was a book; no bigger than an average novel, plain, and midnight blue. He opened it to blank pages inside. Flipping through the book, he looked up at Jane, "There's nothing in here."

"Ask for something."

"What?"

"Ask it for something. Directions, protection, recipes. Just ask."

Now certain that this woman was just trying to make a fool of him, he raised the book and said, with all the authority he could muster, "How do I get out of this place?"

The book did nothing.

"Look inside," The dark girl moved forward, reaching towards the cover.

Zexion flipped the book open once more and on the first page a spidery script traced out the words,_** "Ask politely."**_

Looking warily at his host, Zexion murmured, "If you would be so kind as to unlock the door, I would like to rejoin my friends."

"I will be so kind-in a moment. First, a few warnings. The book occasionally gives advice whether you want it or not. It is usually right, but-or perhaps because- it does not see time and relationships as we do. That also means that it is best to ignore the book from time to time. There are a few wishes it cannot help you with, but you must discover those on your own. Lastly, as I have a hand in fate now I must ask that you return that book _before_ you die. That is all. You may leave." She turned her back on him with a wave of her hand.

The door behind Zexion swung open with alarming force, catapulting him into the mall commons. Amid the laughter of roving pedestrians, Jazz, Tucker, and Sam dragged him to his feet and ushered him to the car.

"I'll want an explanation," the redhead threatened, "but first we have a transformation to complete. It isn't enough that you look like Danny. You need to talk like him, you need to act like him, you need to _smell_ like him. In short, you need to _be_ him." And with that, she spun on her heel and headed to the car. For the first time since she had met up with them in Paulina's salon he noticed the small black bag that she was carrying. With no small feeling of apprehension he rose to follow Tucker and Sam as they ran to catch up.

Casting one last look behind him, he saw only a plain expanse of wall where the store had been only seconds before.

From everywhere and nowhere at one, Jane's voice floated to him. I owed Wendy a favor just that once. I'm sure I'll be seeing you around, but don't expect me to be so easy to find next time.

"Then how on earth as I supposed to return this thing to you?" Zexion muttered under his breath. He nearly screamed with frustration as he felt the little book fidget beneath his fingers as it scrawled out a response to his hypothetical question.

_**A/N**_: A re-post of the previous chapter in Missing, A Novel Idea.

Next chapter is where I break from my previous writings, I believe (I could be mistaken). Thanks to all of you readers who have faved this story, I get a kick out of knowing that you read it.

As always, reviews are appreciated and, like all of my other work on this site, this chapter was posted proofread but unbeta'd.


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